What Unearthed Arcana variants have you used? What did you think of them?

[NPC]

Action Points = Cool Metamagic

If you allow APs from UA, remember that your spellcasters will now be able to cast metamagicked spells by using an AP (provided they have already picked the metamagick feat being "Action Pointed").

This is a serious power-up for the spellcasters. But very cool IMO, because it opens the door earlier for metamagicking.

Spell recall is also a great use of an AP.

Agree with the Bloodline analysis, seems a bit weak to me for what you get.

Racial paragons are cool, especially the human paragon.

 

[Piratecat]

We're using the variant metmagic feats, where you can spontaneously apply the feat to a spell three times per day. We really like this; it means that such feats actually see use every day, and the spellcasters like the increase in flexibility.

We have no sorcerers in the game, but if we did I would allow them to metamagic spells similarly with no increase in casting time.

 

[Davelozzi]

One of my characters rolled up a dwarf to replace his old PC that's got levels in Dwarven Paragon as well as the dragon totem variant barbarian (which we use as a Battlerager). But he's only seen one session of action so far so it's too early to say how it's going to work out.

Action points
LA reduction
Hero points

My copy of the book is lent out right now, but I don't remeber hero points -- I though that was just what some other games called an Action Point sort of mechanic. What are they in Unearthed Arcana?

 

[Samothdm]

The only one I don't like so much of those I have tried is the bloodlines. They aren't working that well in play. They have a mechanic that is at odds with everything else in the system and seem to make you pay way more than you get out of them.

Psion, could you elaborate on this a little? I was working on tweaking some of these for something I'm working on but I'd like to get your input as to your experience in play.

 

[Psion]

My copy of the book is lent out right now, but I don't remeber hero points -- I though that was just what some other games called an Action Point sort of mechanic. What are they in Unearthed Arcana?

Sorry, I meant to say action point. Hero points were in AU. (And in DC heroes, but that's neither here nor there.)

 

[Psion]

Psion, could you elaborate on this a little? I was working on tweaking some of these for something I'm working on but I'd like to get your input as to your experience in play.

Well, there were two problems.

1) The text is confusing. It uses the verbage like "dedicating levels toward your bloodline", when what it should have been doing it using a known mechanic, ECL. Do you get the listed abilities at your character level including the level dedicated towards your bloodline or not.
2) It seemed like compared to an ECL character in the game, the bloodline character wasn't getting as much punch for the levels they dedicated.

I house ruled it so the character's ECL counted on the chart (not just character level as listed), and you could reduce them like LA. It still seems expensive compared to what the wind elf was getting out of her +3 LA, but it was better than it was.

 

[Desdichado]

I've got Damage Conversion, class-based AC progression, Action Points, Sanity and Incantations. I also allowed traits, but nobody took any.

 

[Mucknuggle]

Anyone using Armor as DR and Class Based Defense bonus rules? I'm very curious as to how these change combat.

 

[Woas]

I've used the AC = Nonleathel Damage Conversion system. The players thought this was real fun. It even lead to a few occasions where the party could 'beat up' the enemy without outright killing them (knocking them out for a real long time) and the enemy came back.

I've also used Meta Magic compontents. There pretty neat to throw in to treasure lists... but the huge list of them makes it a pain to keep track of them all and what not.

And last, I've tried the Weapon Class Feats. There pretty nifty. Nothing outstanding from them but a nice way to reclassify weapons. Adds some flavor to the fighter classes.

 

[DaveMage]

The only thing I've used so far is the gestalt option, and it's worked great since my group is only 2 of us and a DM.